Recommended for age 8 and older. (Tonari no Totoro). Drawing on elements of Miyazaki's own childhood, Totoro is set in the country outskirts of Tokyo in 1950s Japan. It was a time when, as the director puts it, "television was yet to have been brought into the home," and two girls, Satsuki and Mei, discover wonder in the secret spirits of the forest that only they can see. The first Miyazaki film to receive significant theater and video release in the U.S. (in 1995, predating the Disney-Ghibli deal), Totoro, even considering the youth of its intended audience and its ties to particular Japanese beliefs, is a film abundantly open and charming to people around the world, of whatever age.-Carl Horn